It's up to you to be a superhero

Where to start?
How about with this: will the person who is currently fucking with the treadmill kindly stop fucking with the treadmill?  Since I've moved back the plug has been broken, the console shorted out due to someone dumping a liquid all over it and then the safety device went AWOL.  Now the belt thing you run on is torn.
Really.
Really?
So now?  When I can't walk tomorrow because I did ten flights of stairs ten times?  It's NOT MY FAULT: the treadmill was out of commission.
In other news, I got pulled into the controller's office today.  From the expression on his face I was pretty sure he was prepping me for disappointment, especially when he went to the email that HR had sent him regarding my request for a year's leave of absence.  It's easy to give bad news when it comes from another department and you are merely "passing it on".
Surprise, surprise: staring July 1st I have a(n unpaid) YEAR OFF.  It's still sinking in.  Michael says I better have a big list of things that I am going to do or he's going to give me a big list.
Here's what I have planned so far:

• sleeping
• exercising
• eating more cheese
• running less marathons
• finding out how to not get fat when eating cheese and not running marathons
• helping my mom and Nana out however I can
• helping Michael's sister and mother out however I can
• going to Europe
• going back to Portland
• possibly visiting Lasqueti
• possibly bombing around Vancouver Island and perhaps some of the Gulf Islands
• finishing that book that I started writing a millennium ago, just for the sake of finishing it, and not because I think I'm going to be the next Douglas Coupland

Here's an excerpt from it:

He has one of those hangovers that make one feel like one should reconsider their current lifestyle and maybe to change it to include more green, leafy vegetables and five mile runs and less scotch and late night jerk off sessions to whatever nubile young thing the information superhighway is able to procure for him.  

He used to be in shape.  Lean protein, lots of swimming and running.  He would leave whatever bar he walked into with whatever woman he wanted to leave with.  It seems like a millennium ago.  How the fuck did this happen?  He lost some of the tone and then he got pudgy and sure, he’s a big guy to start with, but let’s face facts here: now he’s fucking fat.  He avoids looking at himself in the mirror when he gets out of the shower.  And every time he sits in his chair in front of his Mac notebook, stroking his cock to some visage that is barely legal and loves taking it up the ass, his gut is there, reminding him of his current station in life.

There’s a rap at his office door and he looks up from his personal email to see the receptionist standing there.  She’s not bad to look at: the company likes to put a pretty face at the door.  She’s blonde - he doesn’t prefer blondes and she’s curvier than he likes - but he’d fuck her six ways from Sunday if she gave him an opening.

“Melinda,” he purrs, smiling.  “Good morning.”

He is pleased to see her demure smile, the slight blush in her cheeks as she tilts her head coquettishly.  “Bradley.  My computer is running really slow and I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

That’s why I’m here, baby girl, he thinks.  “Have you re-booted it?” he asks.  He wants a strongly worded sign on his office door that says “Reboot before you open your mouth”.  A surprising amount of these plebes don’t even log off their goddamn PCs when they go home for the day.  Opportunities like that used to entertain him endlessly when he first started out, but now he can’t be bothered.

“I did.  Twice,” she replies, making a small moue with her mouth.

Of course she did.  Christ, he thinks.  “Okay, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes, Melinda: I just have some stuff to finish up here.”

She smiles at him and flounces back to her desk and he lets his gaze descend from Melinda’s perky backside down to the email on his screen:

“Hi Bradley!  How did everything go last night?  You must be tired!  I hope it wasn’t too late.  Sorry we couldn’t connect, but maybe I can make you dinner tonight?”

Ah, Sandra.  Bradley and his assistant were doing Windows updates last night and he had planned on going to see Sandra afterwards but then Jonathan suggested going to Malone’s for drinks and he found himself accepting and texting Sandra to say they had run into problems and that it would likely be a late night and could he take a rain check.

He surprised himself, even.  Going over to Sandra’s would’ve meant he would’ve gotten laid.  Going out with Jonathan ensured there was no possibility of this occurring.  Jonathan is one of those freakishly good looking guys who doesn’t seem to be aware of it and he was, in fact, seemingly shy in the face of the female attention lavished on him which, naturally, only endeared him more to the ladies while Bradley played second fiddle and hoped that one of Jonathan’s entourage might have had enough to drink to think that a guy with a slightly receding hairline and an extra 30 pounds might be something she wanted to take home with her.

A multitude of drinks later he cabbed it home only to pour himself another couple of generous scotch and sodas to keep him company while he pleasured himself in front of his laptop.  He’d ultimately been too drunk to cum. 

Boom!  I wrote that.
The fact is that I'm probably going to make more off the twenty-five RIM stock that I bought for $10 a few months ago than I am from my writing, but it entertains me and I'm a girl that likes to be entertained.
Fuck the book: I'm sitting at a 50% or 60% return on my first stock purchase -  I'm going to be a day trader!